Watercooler Wednesday Challenge #131 - Kath's "All About Birthdays" Challenge

*Chosen for Top Three in the SUO Challenge----Yay!*

I love celebrating birthdays, don't you?  And making a card for someone's birthday is such a pleasure.  Naturally I'm happy that this week's challenge, hosted by Kath Ricks, is "All About Birthdays".

When I first looked through the new Annual Catalogue, I was drawn to the fun new Birthday Memories Suite.  The stamp set with its matching framelits and that colourful Designer Paper were hard to pass up, especially since there was also some beautiful Stitched Edge Ribbon and Balloon Honeycomb Embellishments.

I decided to make my card in the popular Double Z fold.  I think it shows off the paper and the characters in this set wonderfully well.  To begin, I used a base of Heavy Whisper White.  I followed up with a layer of Lemon Lime Twist and some of the beautiful Designer Paper.

The Fox was the easiest.  There was a framelit that cut him out from the Designer Paper with all the characters.  I didn't even have to stamp him or colour him.  The rest of the gang?  I fussy-cut them all.  By the end I had to take a break.  Using the hand-cut characters, however, really made the wonderful "animal parade" possible.

You can see that I've sponged some grass on a layer of Whisper White in order to give the characters a background to anchor them.  The inks used were a combination of Lemon Lime Twist and Old Olive.

Doesn't that "animal parade" look great?  To finish off I added two of the Balloon Honeycomb Embellishments over the two cut-out balloons.  Can't you imagine a child's face when he or she opens this card?

I hope you'll check out the terrific cards created by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

I've also included my card in the SUO Challenge since it  is also all about birthdays--how handy is that!